| On this date in: |
| 1797 |
“Frankenstein” author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was born in London. |
| 1862 |
Union forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Second Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Va. |
| 1893 |
Huey P. Long, the “Kingfish” of Louisiana politics, was born in Winn Parish, La. |
| 1905 |
Baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb made his major league debut with the Detroit Tigers. |
| 1918 |
Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Williams was born in San Diego. |
| 1941 |
Nazi forces began a siege of Leningrad during World War II that lasted nearly two and a half years. |
| 1945 |
Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Japan and set up Allied occupation headquarters. |
| 1963 |
A hot-line communications link between Washington, D.C., and Moscow went into operation. |
| 1965 |
The album “Highway 61 Revisited” by Bob Dylan was released. |
| 1967 |
The Senate confirmed the appointment of Thurgood Marshall as the first African-American justice on the Supreme Court. |
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| AP Photo |
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| 1983 |
Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first African-American astronaut to travel in space when he blasted off aboard the space shuttle Challenger. |
| 1989 |
A federal jury in New York found “hotel queen” Leona Helmsley guilty of income tax evasion but acquitted her of extortion. |
| 1990 |
President George H.W. Bush told a news conference that a “new world order” could emerge from the Persian Gulf crisis. |
| 1993 |
“The Late Show with David Letterman” premiered on CBS. |
| 1999 |
Residents of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in a U.N.-sponsored ballot. |
